Elizabeth said only, “For your own sake, you should move on. From me, from this town. Keep your family safe. Haven’t you been through enough?”

Then she simply walked away.

Would that warning be sufficient?

Elizabeth thought so. She doubted a slip of a girl like Nadia Caldani represented any real danger in the first place; any complications from Nadia’s crush on Mateo would be minor and easily corrected with spells of forgetting or compulsion. Nadia would never tell Mateo about magic, or therefore about Elizabeth’s own witchcraft—someone so earnestly self-righteous would never break one of the First Laws.

And yet Elizabeth had to think of another besides herself.

Were Nadia to turn her avid curiosity away from Elizabeth and onto the magic she must, by now, have sensed beneath the chemistry lab—

No, that would not do.

Quickly Elizabeth cast a simple spell to shield the chemistry lab better. No magic on earth was capable of shielding that much power for very long, but she only needed another few weeks now.

I protect you, she thought to the last One she would ever love. I stand between you and all who would oppose you, weak or mighty.

The spell shimmered out across the school, settling deep within the earth, where it could do the most good.

Now, to cover her tracks. Briefly Elizabeth considered having Nadia forget everything about her. It would be cleaner—but probably short-lived. If Nadia had figured out this much already, she’d probably manage to figure out that Elizabeth was a witch again—and again—and again. Repeated confrontations: What a bore.

Besides, Nadia’s knowledge was no more threat than Nadia herself, now that the Chamber was protected. Elizabeth needed only to ensure that would continue.

So she sent out a spell of forgetting, highly targeted, highly specific—and sufficient to make sure Nadia Caldani could do nothing to interfere with Elizabeth’s plans, in even the slightest way.

Nadia stopped in her tracks, books in her arms. Did I forget something?

She’d been freaking out about Elizabeth facing her down that way—so much that apparently she’d lost track of something else. And it was important, too. Did it have to do with chemistry class, maybe?

I bet there’s an assignment I forgot to write down, she thought, and sighed. She’d have to ask Mateo about it later.

The neighbors looked at Mateo warily when he asked to borrow the boat, but then, that was how they always looked at him. As soon as they said yes, he texted Nadia: Meet me at sunset at the boathouse. Is Verlaine coming?

I didn’t tell her about it, Nadia replied, and Mateo felt slightly relieved. It wasn’t that he didn’t like Verlaine—he kind of did, which surprised him, since as long as he could remember, she’d been the only kid more outcast than he was in Captive’s Sound. But whatever they found in the ocean—if it explained more about who Elizabeth really was, what she was keeping from him—then he wanted to talk about that with Nadia, alone.